Like the old days

Today saw a bit of socializing happen, which is a rarity for me these days. James (kawaiiryuko) is in town for the holidays, and he wanted to meet up before heading back to Hong Kong, so we had made plans to hit a diner this morning. Originally he was going to come out to SI, but some delays and shenanigans with car availability had us revise the plan, so we ended up meeting in the middle in Brooklyn, since we were coming from SI and he was coming from Flushing. He semi-randomly settled on the Lindenwood Diner, which none of us had ever been to before, but which seemed like a good halfway point between our various points of origin. It's way the hell out in eastern Brooklyn; I'm not even sure if there's a neighborhood name or what. It's almost out to JFK at that point. Tabitha (lucidam), Gb, and I piled into the car and headed out there and met James. Unfortunately, his wife and kid were sick and didn't come out to play, but we had a nice, old-school diner hangout, and it was nice to catch up and shoot the shit for a while. We talked about the usual everything and nothing. I asked him about life in Hong Kong, and he was regaled with some stories from around these parts. It was a fun time; I'm glad I made the effort to leave the Rock. [EDIT: I should also add for historical purposes that, as is tradition whenever James and I share a meal out, we played CCR to settle the bill. Since it was really just James and I playing, I went with a two-player variant by flipping a coin. James ended up paying; I left the tip. I honestly can't remember where the record stands now, so I'm just going to call this undefeated in 2016 so far, and another good start. ;)]

After we parted ways, our trio headed back to Tabi's place to play some games. So...some backstory. A while back I picked up the game Zeppelin Attack from the Kickstarter. (This is going to be a recurring theme, I think. I pick up a card or board game every now and then from Kickstarter; almost all the RPGs I get anymore are through Kickstarter. This is a whole other topic.) When I had first pitched the game to the household, Gb's suggestion was that we should have zeppolis when we play Zeppelin Attack, which sounded good to me. So, back to now. I had picked up some zeppolis for New Year's Eve so we could play it then, but we didn't end up playing; I think Murder of Crows probably took its place. Whatever the case, we didn't end up eating the zeppolis. :) So I was thinking we could take care of that tonight, instead. But instead of diving into Zeppelin Attack when we got back, we instead tried out Boss Monster, which was a game I had picked up this past Metatopia (in November), but that we hadn't tried. (I also didn't know anything about it; I just picked it up randomly.) It seemed like it would be an easier and faster game than Zeppelin Attack, though (which is a deck builder), so we gave that a shot. It's an all right game. It's pretty fun, but it has that fatal flaw (to me) of player elimination, and I can also see the game getting old pretty quickly (not a lot of card variety), but it was cute in its way. I believe Tabitha won both games. I definitely know I got eliminated in both games. ;)

Anyway, she's having her tea and reading, and I'm just dashing off this entry before bed. I'm getting sleepier earlier in the day these days, I think, but I'm taking that as a good sign that I'm putting together a better sleep routine than I've had lately. It remains to be seen whether this helps me be more productive overall, or at least get more done in a day (not sure if that's the same thing or not), but I'm keeping a good thought.

Today's roundup, then, is a little bit of Internet, and a whole lot of social time, some of it even involving someone outside the family. ;) I'm starting to feel sad about there only being one more day of free time before it's back to work. Before the end of the weekend comes, I always like to think I'm going to "make the most of it," whatever that means, but I always end up feeling like there's never enough time to get the stuff done that I want to get done. So we'll see what happens tomorrow. I still have so much catchup to do, and the thing about the Internet is that there's always more of it. Oh, on the topic of making the most of my time, though, so far I think I'm doing all right trying to take advantage of the Habitica stuff. As was recommended, I'm not jumping right in with a million things to keep track of, but the stuff I am tracking, I think I'm being pretty good about so far. I dunno...still calibrating. I'm pondering whether it's worth spending money on it, but so far I'm leaning toward "yes." That lends some importance to it, so I think it will encourage me to take it more seriously. Yeah...that's sounding pretty good, actually.